Ghost Tales: Stories from the Shadows of the Circus
by With a Sprinkle of Winter
Summary: Here's a collection of drabbles surrounding various characters in the Night Circus. Rated T to be safe. Please review or PM me if you have a prompt or request!
1. Chapter 1

_**Hi again! Here's the Night Circus fic I promised awhile ago. This is just going to be a bunch of drabbles, so I'm open to prompts and requests. Please review and tell me what you want!**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the Night Circus**_

The Circus has little place in daytime. It's not quite nocturnal, more, well, _sad. _It looks forsaken and empty from the outside, like it may crumble away in the sunshine. It looks curious. When it comes, many go to see just exactly _how _tall the acrobat tent is. And yes, it is _very _tall. The patrons collect before the circus is open, and very few people come late to the Circus first time. Those who have been before take the time from afar, to watch the lights crackle on over awed faces, bemused.

I watch from beneath the warm velvet curtain of the ticketmaster's skirt. I watch many feet pass us as the night progresses. My favorites are the small red boots that the little ones wear. Most often with a coat brushing their hems. I listen to the way the little ones wax on about the lights and the tents and how their mothers let them stay up late. It is almost always their first time.

My first time in the Circus was the night I was named. Girl and Boy named me Bootes. I was just a kit, then. I only remember the colors. Everyone that night was bright and lit-up. I fell asleep against Pavo and I remember the deep light of the Circus under the sky.

The Circus is like a filled chocolate. It's dark and monochromatic on the outside, and really, that outside goes for miles. But the inside in a tight warren of bright that takes all the color from the outside and reflects it on itsself. I can't say which I love more, so I like to stand at the border.


	2. The Frame

I am biologically impossible. Yes, you read that right. Impossible. Hi. I'm Paz Alisdair-Bowen. I am a figment of my parents' imagination.

It started- well, _I _started- on February 13th, 1912. We were in Cairo, posted in the sand between the city and the river. That is to say, we were on a boat. My parents, having successfully passed on the Circus to Poppet, Widget and Bailey, were monopolizing the Frame.

The space was their favorite. It was a small, not-quite tent. When you enter, it is pitch-black. You stand in the chill, waiting for something to happen, and then there's a flash of white light, and you find yourself in limbo. Exactly where you wanted to be most, frozen exactly as you remember. The effect is like walking through a picture.

It was Bailey's first tent. He made it for my parents on Celia's birthday. Their room is Celia's version of their first kiss. It is a soft orb of moss green flushed with streaks of fire, burning and warm. Marco's version is much more focused. An endless beach of green, with pink sand and fire along the horizon. Sunrise.

They were resting in the pool of moss velvet, Marco on his back and Celia with her head on his chest.

"Do you ever wonder what our children would be like?"

"No"

Marco said nothing.

"I know what our kids would be like. Our daughter, named Paz Alisdair-Bowen, has long brown hair. She has strong brows and blue eyes. Her favorite tent is the Menagerie, and she follows Widget around like a puppy. She's convinced herself she wants to be a writer."

Marco smiled. "Dear heart, you're right, she does quite like Widget, but her favorite tent is the Cloud Maze."

_Oh, shut up, you two. My favorite is the Bell Tower and you know it. _

It went on from there, snatches of ideas. They tell each other stories about me. The time I decided to run for American president, the time I invented a cocktail, the time I broke the Stargazer. Celia to Marco when he's sad. Marco to Celia when she's jealous or lonely. And now, eight years later, I am an imaginary ten-year-old, living in the middle of a magical circus.

They said I liked Widget, but not really. Uncle Widge is nice, but he's kind of goofy and he's nosy. I follow him around because he sees me. You know, like a proper, solid human being. I ask him questions and he answers, he relates my messages to my parents.

Uncle Widget's gift is to see stories. It makes sense that, of anyone, he sees me. But Widge doesn't think anyone will believe him if he tells them I'm real. In this wonderful, impossible place, I guess he knows where the line is. It's kind of a pain to have to send all of my messages through him. Especially hard when I see that my parents are sad, or angry with each other. I can't talk to them, not in real life. I try.

_Hey, Uncle Widge!_

"Yes, Paz?"

_Tell them I love them. Tell them it wasn't their fault, that magic happens to everyone. Tell them I exist, please._

He groans. "Paz, you know I can't do that. As much as they love you, you're a story. I think, for today, at least, we should let them shape how you grow up."

I huff. _Fine._

"Remember when she painted the Eiffel Tower? _(by the way, they mean taking a paintbrush and ACTUALLY PUTTING PAINT ON THE EIFFEL TOWER. It didn't come off until the following January.)_

"Oh, yes. Remember, she only told us when she asked us what color she preferred!"

"And the one about the neighbors baby in the fashion show?"

"Tell me that one, please."

_(They do this a lot. Make up things they remember. I always sit in. They never see me.) _

"Well, she was seven, I think."

"Yes. Just after her birthday."

"Where were we?"

"Istanbul."

"Thanks. Anyway, she was in Ethan's studio, with Claire. She kept insisting that her real name was Emmarie, and she belonged in Abuja."

_Not true. I said Stockholm. _

"Mm. She walked right in and said, 'Uncle Ethan, Auntie Tara, this is Emmarie. You didn't hold her baby shower right, so we're going to do it over. Expect your invitations.'"

"Oh, yes! With the headband and the imports!"

_ Some nights I keep the Frame. I walk through that first memory, over and over again. My beginning. The green velvet with fire on the horizon. No one really notices. The Frame is one of those tents that disappears, falling in and out of the circle in odd cycles. _

_ Those nights, I walk through the party, their first kiss. I see the act. The mesh of his fingers in her hair, her slim arms around his hips. I watch the bleed of his moss green into her dark grey. This is the power of the Frame. I can walk through anything, any moment. I can live anything. I don't know why I visit their first kiss. All it does is hurt. I pretend to myself that I watch it to know that if I was a proper, flesh-bones-blood girl, I would be loved. Because I would be them. Half him, half her. I think I really watch it because I'm not half him, half her. I am the Circus. And they are part of it, so they are part of me. I can never be a flesh-bones-blood kind of girl. I'm just a story. _

_ Like a book traded between writers, I am steadily shaped, but never quite real. But I control my pages, and I can write my story. I will. Promise. _


	3. Birch Casket

"Penelope Aislin Murray was born on the first opening night of Le Cirque des Rêves." The light voice reading steadfast and strong cracked. Pet looked towards the Wishing Tree, below which was a closed birch casket. She took one deep, stuttering breath. "My mother- ugh, sorry. Mom poured her heart and soul into the Circus. She raised me and Connor in the most magical place in the world. She was always here, performing with the cats or walking the paths. She had a way of looking like she knew what she was doing. I remember, she said they needed at least one person on hand who could act like she knew what she was doing." Pet smiled. "For such a kind, knowing person, it is only fitting that we celebrate her with a beginning. Tonight, we light the Circus up. Tonight, everything is bright and whole and we surround ourselves with what she did. Tonight, we overcompensate, try to remember her in everything. Tomorrow, promise me we'll carry on."

A tear slipped out of Pet's eye, paving a racetrack for those that would follow.

"I was named after Penelope of Sparta, as was my mother. She because the first Penelope was patience incarnate, and my mother was born into a world of waiting. Me because the Penelope was the plain one, the clever one, as I always will be." Amidst her her shaky breaths, Penelope Aislin Murray II shot an almost cheeky smile towards her teary brother, accompanied by a breathy giggle. Connor tried to look put-out. "Thanks, sis. At least I get to be the pretty one."

"Like your mother."

All eyes swiveled to a tall, lanky man at the back of the space. The only one in black. A fresh wave of tears fall down Pet's cheeks, smudging mascara and dripping onto her ivory evening gown. She looks imploringly at the man, shoulders sagging. His lined face fell just a centimeter, and he gave one heavy nod.

"I want to tell you Mom's memory is strong enough to carry on without her here. I want to tell my dad that I believe she's in a better place. All I can tell you is this: my mother was the strongest, kindest woman I have known, and I don't think anyone will ever top her. I think we'll see her everywhere. I think she would want to be remembered the Circus, and so I think we should remember her in the Circus."

Penelope let her rigid posture follow her shoulders in a defeated sag, walking in an eerily graceful way towards the casket, skirt swishing about feet. She feels him come up behind her through the blur of tears. "She would'a loved that, sweetie. You do her justice with your words." His sinewy hand drifted towards the smooth wood, yearning to touch warm cheek, feel a pulse that wasn't there anymore. The only tear Bailey had shed that night fell then, making a salt stain on the pale wood. His long frame bent over, suddenly all sharp breaths and stifled sobs. "God, I'm going to miss her."

Penelope knew that her father loved her mother, and her mother loved her father. They showed it, holding hands like they were twenty, thirty years younger, smiling when they thought no one could see. They operated like one unit, like they had always been a seesaw of short, red hair and long limbs. She knew that is would be hard, that getting to the point where he could go in the Labyrinth, climb the Cloud Maze, or walk the Ice Garden was a long time away. But she also knew he would get there, because she would've wanted it that way.

**_AN: Yeah, so Poppet and Bailey's daughter gives Poppet's eulogy, cheery, I know. I just had this mental image of Poppet depicted in the fire of the Wishing Tree, and the Circus a burning white. So, this happened. In the last chapter I alluded to a character named Claire, so she should be more prominent in the next chapter. Thanks for reading, reviews are welcome!_**


	4. Once Upon a Tome

I found it in the Labyrinth. In the big room, the theatre. Magical place, that. It's a grand room, all blue velvet and gold. The curtains were pooled over it. That didn't help when I tried to move them. It was like clouds of dust had been siphoned into this small corner, and they were all being released in a hurricane.

Once I could breathe again and was _quite done coughing_, thankyouverymuch, I saw it. It happened to be a book. It looked ancient. It was thick, bound in leather, nothing on the cover. I recognized the handwriting, the cramped, spiky script that was my mother's as well as the rumpled looking loops that belonged to my father. It read: _Correspondence: A Love Story_

Flipping through the pages, I realized it was a shared diary. He wrote to her, about her, for her, and she did the same for him.

_Once Upon A Tome..._

_When one enters the Circus, the bright fire and ecstatic beauty of one's surroundings distracts from the slight things. The patrons who return again and again try to memorize the taste of the mulled cider, the scent of sweetness in the air. All of this has been said, my dear. It astonishes me how no one notices the weight of the velvet, and even if they do, it is not attached to your name. I want to tell everyone how magical, valuable, unique, irreplaceable your work is, how you are. I miss you. I'll see you in Paris._

_-Forever yours,_

_Ethan_

_How far do the unlucky ones have to travel to find their version of you?_

_I would not know. I only know that the unlucky ones do not know the joy in your smile, the crinkles at the corner of your eyes. You, my sweet, make me the lucky one._

My favorite entry was at the very back, written in my mother's handwriting.

_We have a baby. A girl. We've called her Claire. She's the most beautiful baby in the world. We'll give this to her someday. Claire, your father says he loves you. As do I. Always._

_-Ethan and Lainie_

Their names were carved through the paper into the soft leather, liked in the cursive as if they were one word.

_**Okay, I have a serious issue with not elaborating when I write. Jeez. Next chapter, I promise, there will be explanation. Everything will almost make sense soon. Review if you have any comments!**_


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